Designing our Home

In order to get an accurate bid from the contractors we needed to have architectural plans. We decided to go with one of the contractors architect, Phillip. Phillip has been in the business for probably 30 + years and had designed 100's of houses. We felt confident in his work.

We met with him and showed him Bettie's floor plan (or what we thought it was... since we still had not been in it).

The original first floor plan

WE discussed with Phillip what things we would like to be changed: The Kitchen?? are you serious... it is so small. Needed to be bigger. We also needed to have a bathroom that we could access from the backyard.

The original 2nd story:

Things that needed to be changed: Bigger Master Bath and a Large Bonus room.

We also discussed the Style of our House and what we would like it to look like outside.

Now it was Phillips turn. He went to work and tried to figure out how we can get all our wants into this house, using most of the existing floor plan.

After a week or so he came back with this plan:

1st floor

2nd floor

Outside

 We sat down and looked over the plan and needed to make some major changes.
1. Didn't like the guest bathroom and bedroom configuration
2. Didn't like the Master bedroom being in the huge room that needed to be the kids bonus room
3. The outside look was not what we were looking for

Back to the drawing board Phillip, Literally. Yep he hand draws everything which is a huge talent but something that became really annoying really quickly. If we wanted just a little change here or there it took him a while to make the change because he needed to redraw everything.

***A little piece of Advice.. make sure that if you ever have to use a Architect make sure they know how to use the computer.

Second round of designs:

1st floor

2nd floor

Outside

 Ok.. it is getting closer.. but still changes needed to be made.

1) still didn't like the set up of the guest bedroom
2) the Kids bathroom needed to be a lot bigger if they were all going to share
3) The outside still needed to change.

Third round:

1st floor

2nd floor

Yes... getting closer and closer.

1. Remove a small wall on the 1st floor 

2. Still not loving the size of the 2nd story bathrooms.

 4th Round: (can you tell we study these plans over and over and over again.. sorry about the messy paper)

YES!!! Almost perfect but good enough to get a decent bid from the Contractors.

****This was by far my least favorite part of the process*** So stressful! Should we put a window here? or there? should we put the closet here or there? should we have the laundry room here or there!!! Wow I hate decisions... especially when they are important. My brain fills like it is going to explode.